TikTok ban likely to spread to US allies – including UK


As the US ban on TikTok looms, analysts are speculating that the ban will spread to other countries. The US has ruled that the Chinese-owned app is a national security risk, owing to ByteDance’s alleged ties to the Chinese government, an allegation that ByteDance denies. However, incoming US president Joe Biden has expressed opposition to the ban, suggesting that he may choose to reverse it.

If the US ban goes ahead, other countries may follow a blueprint that has already seen Russian firm Kaspersky and Chinese telecoms giant Huawei ousted from allied nations on national security grounds. Cybersecurity experts have drawn parallels between the situations of these firms and TikTok, although in both the cases of Huawei and Kaspersky, officials accused the companies of posing a threat to national security without revealing a smoking gun.

The US led a gradual ban on Kaspersky, which resulted in a countrywide ban coming into effect last year, after the company closed its US and UK operations. For Huawei, similar lobbying from the US saw the Five Eyes Alliance ban the company from government devices, with allies following suit. However, it is unclear whether similar lobbying, or Trump’s opposition to the ban, will lead to a similar outcome for TikTok.

With a potential loss of 170 million US users, TikTok’s future in the absence of a US customer base is uncertain, particularly given the value of US users to advertisers, creators, and spending on TikTok shop. The app is already banned in several other countries, including India and Pakistan, and its absence in China owing to its sister app Douyin means that the possible loss of the US market could further erode the company’s dominance outside China, and entrench the power of US incumbents such as Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat

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